Whitley Stokes - Death and Reputation

Death and Reputation

Stokes died at his London home, 15 Grenville Place, Kensington, in 1909. The Gaelic League paper An Claidheamh Soluis called Stokes "the greatest of the Celtologists" and expressed pride that an Irishman should have excelled in a field which was at that time dominated by continental scholars. In 1929 the Canadian scholar James F. Kenney described Stokes as "the greatest scholar in philology that Ireland has produced, and the only one that may be ranked with the most famous of continental savants".

A conference entitled "Ireland, India, London: The Tripartite Life Of Whitley Stokes" took place at the University of Cambridge from 18–19 September 2009. The event was organised to mark the centenary of Stokes' death. A volume of essays based on the papers delivered at this conference, The tripartite life of Whitley Stokes (1830-1909), will be published by Four Courts Press in autumn 2011.

In 2010 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín published Whitley Stokes (1830-1909):the Lost Celtic Notebooks Rediscovered, a volume based on the scholarship in Stokes' 150 notebooks which had been resting unnoticed at the University Library, Leipzig since 1919.